


effloresce

by JazzRaft



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, Flirting, Fluff, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-31
Updated: 2020-03-31
Packaged: 2021-03-01 02:48:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,324
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23417725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JazzRaft/pseuds/JazzRaft
Summary: Lunafreya's touch is as gentle as starlight. Crowe doesn't understand why she continues to tarnish it by holding these sharp hands of her own.
Relationships: Crowe Altius/Lunafreya Nox Fleuret
Comments: 4
Kudos: 21





	effloresce

**Author's Note:**

  * For [glaivenoct](https://archiveofourown.org/users/glaivenoct/gifts).



> A [prompt fill](https://jazzraft.tumblr.com/post/614060179373309952/34-for-lunacrowe) for [glaivenoct!](https://glaivenoct.tumblr.com/)

The first time she felt it, Crowe thought that it was an accident.

There was no thinking about it, even. She _knew_ that it was an accident. Anything more would have bordered too closely along the edge of Princess Lunafreya’s social constraints. And Crowe was all but certain that the Oracle adhered as religiously to the law of societal decorum as she did to the Cosmogony itself.

It was just an accident. That was made plain by the princess’s gracefully hasty apology after she brushed against her. Whatever. Crowe was used to the nations’ elite forgetting she was there. She’d stopped letting herself feel demoralized by being considered one with the furnishings. It was usually nice furnishings; at least she could count herself among elegant company with the curtains. She’d be more insulted if she was walked over in a bathroom or something.

“Oh! Do excuse me,” the Princess had apologized, palms up in a placating gesture.

Crowe jerked her chin in a nod. She wasn’t even obligated to do that much, but she was still a person under the grim, glaive armor. She cared more about not being rude than she did about the rules. She didn’t expect that Lady Lunafreya would be a kindred spirit in that sense… But now she wondered.

The room wasn’t that crowded. The Princess had plenty of space to avoid Crowe. That fleeting scrape of her hand against hers was starting to feel awfully deliberate.

The Lady Lunafreya was a familiar fixture of Citadel life. Her political allegiances may have been bound by the Empire, but her personal ones were adamant about remaining unconfined. She traveled freely between Tenebrae and Lucis – as freely as one could be under the strictest, scariest Niflheim guards Crowe had ever seen. Luna arrived to the Citadel like a spring breeze every time she visited, lilting through the cold black doors with the warmth of the sun in her hair and the scent of blossoms on her skin.

Not that Crowe noticed… If asked, anyway. She had as cordial a relationship with the Princess as a person working security could have, she supposed. Luna was friendly enough with everyone, regardless of their status, but Crowe knew better than to mistake good manners as actually caring. She’d watched enough socialites ingratiate themselves to people below their rank in society for a candid photo op to know not to flatter herself whenever a pretty blonde bat her eyelashes at her.

But then, not every runway ready noblewoman invited Crowe to take breakfast in her quarters to shoot the breeze about Citadel gossip between the times she was away.

“You know I can get in deep shit for this,” Crowe said, popping another blueberry into her mouth.

“You say that every time,” Luna laughed, topping off Crowe’s cup of coffee. “Now, tell me what’s new in Insomnia.”

“The King is older, the Wall is weaker, and the people are a bit stupider about both,” Crowe groused. “Nothing new to report.”

“Surely that’s not true.”

“The people being stupid part?”

“The nothing new part.”

Crowe could have easily needled out a concession – “so you think the people _are_ stupid” – but she’d lost this game plenty of times before. Luna was far too decorous to talk down about the citizens of a country she wasn’t born to. She was a better woman than Crowe was. According to the headlines that deified her since the day she was made Oracle, she was a better woman than all women - and most men.

“I’m the wrong person to be asking,” Crowe sighed, scanning the skyline beneath them as if she could pick out some new building she didn’t know had been built to share with her.

“You say that every time, too,” Luna chuckled.

“Never stops being true.”

“Then tell me what’s new with you.”

Now this was a new addition to their bi-monthly brunches. The only way Crowe was certain that Luna was only using her for gossip was the fact that she never asked about her personal life. Which had been all fine and dandy with Crowe. She got a free breakfast – better than anything she would ever be able to afford – and the princess didn’t tattle on her for using her vulgar language, all in exchange for some benign little updates about city life.

This was new. But then, so was the swift stealing of her hand on hers in a ballroom full of very distinguished, very disapproving people.

“Same old, same old,” Crowe mumbled, knocking back her cup of coffee like the gesture itself could will it to be alcoholic in nature.

“Now that I don’t believe.”

“I’m a boring person, Princess.”

“A member of the elite Kingsglaive and a mage to boot,” Luna said, with a critical rise of her brow. “I’d hardly call that boring.”

Crowe snorted and rolled her eyes, hoping to dismiss the topic. She didn’t like talking about herself as a general rule. Getting into the grit and gore of her profession with a woman of such untarnished reputation was the last way she planned on breaking that rule. But Luna was more headstrong than most gave her credit for – spitting in the eye of the Empire by walking right into the heart of the Citadel every other season was proof enough of that. And Crowe kept forgetting she’d seen plenty of her own gore in her time. Soldiers were unconscious for half of it. It was the healers who really saw the worst of it.

“What happened to your hand?” Luna asked. “We could start there.”

Crowe glanced down at her bruised knuckles. She flexed her fingers to remind her that the scrapes were even there. She hadn’t even given it a second thought. It actually took her a more moments than one to remember how it even happened.

“Oh. Yeah. Bar fight.”

She didn’t expect to get into the details, but when Luna stared at her with that open, honest expression, entirely neutral and offering safety from whatever violence she’d enabled… Well, Crowe didn’t get a whole lot of that in her life. Chalk it up to the Oracle’s holy crusade, because she always ended up confessing.

“Let’s just say the guy wasn’t exactly a fan of my friend’s Galahdian fashion choices.”

Luna frowned. Somehow even her most severe of scowls looked as elegant as her smiles. “Even after all these years, that’s still an issue around Lucis?”

Crowe shrugged and sipped her coffee. “Like I said. Nothing new.”

The bruises were a small price to pay for defending Nyx’s battle braids. It wasn’t like it was the first time she’d broken a dude’s nose for looking at her friends funny. And it certainly wasn’t going to be the last. Nevertheless, having a sympathetic ear from one of the most esteemed figures in the world still felt pretty damn vindicating.

“I appreciate you indulging me,” Luna said later, escorting Crowe to the door.

The hilarity of that role reversal never failed to amuse her. “Always appreciate a decent meal, Princess.”

“One day I hope you’ll consider us close enough to call me Luna.”

This time, when Crowe felt the cool slip of her hand against hers, there was no excusing it as accidental. Nor was the bright balm she felt trailing across her knuckles in the wake of her fingertip. Crowe knew magic like she knew her own blood, but she’d never felt magic as potently gentle as the Oracle’s. Luna imparted a smile that Crowe couldn’t interpret as anything short of beguiling, then she closed the door between them with a quiet click.

Crowe raised her knuckles to her face, watching the golden glow of the Oracle’s magic dissipate from her skin like champagne bubbles tickling the edge of a glass. When it was gone, so was the bruising. And so was Crowe’s doubt that the revered Lady Lunafreya of Tenebrae played by anyone’s rules but her own.


End file.
